We take home Wi-Fi networks for granted, but are they secure enough? Photograph: Zave Smith/Corbis

One of the world’s biggest digital rights groups wants to make Wi-Fi networks more secure. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) needs developers' help with its Open Wireless Router project.

Launched at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City last weekend, the project is also aiming to help people easily share their routers with others, without snoops being able to access their data.

"The software aims to do several things that existing routers don't do well—or don't do at all," explained the EFF in a blog post outlining ambitions to fight "the growing tide of attacks" against Wi-Fi routers belonging to homes and small businesses alike.

For now, the Open Wireless Router software is an "experimental hacker alpha release" that only works on on router, the Netgear WNDR3800 hub. Developers and "people willing to deal with the bleeding edge" are being invited to download the software to test, develop and improbe it.

Features will include a secure software auto-update mechanism that uses the Tor anonymising network, which the EFF hopes will make attacks masquerading as software updates considerably less likely to succeed.

There will also be a “minimalist, secure, and elegant web user interface to set up and configure the router”, to make it simpler for the average user to alter security settings on the device.

The Open Wireless Router will also allow small businesses and home users to let guests and passersby get an internet connection if they need one, while maintaining a secure, password-protected portion of their network.

Anti-virus company Sophos is backing the move, with its global head of security research, James Lyne, saying that many home and small business routers still have "basic web application security floors which allow remote control or information exposure".

“These [router] manufacturers need to learn to take security seriously … and more importantly need to design their equipment to be updated given the extended length of service most people tend to subject the equipment too,” Lyne told the Guardian.

Individual users could also do a better job of securing their Wi-Fi networks. Recent research from Sophos, in which Lyne travelled around various UK cities on a bicycle to test router security, found in some some areas more than a third had bad security practices.

Between 5% and 9% used the "incredibly ancient" Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol, which was supposed to protect people’s data moving around routers, but has known vulnerabilities and should not be used anywhere, Lyne said.

“In addition to the security fixes advocated here we also need to see a fundamentally better way of handling open wireless networks,” Lyne added.

The Guardian's top tips to make home Wi-Fi more secure

Switch on the Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) protocol instead of WEP or WPA 1. Settings can be changed by visiting the website of the router vendor and following the instructions. The website or its IP address (e.g. 216.27.61.137) might be written on the router itself.

Use a strong password, ideally one that is over 14 characters in length and doesn’t use any words from the dictionary. This will prevent attackers logging in to your network using tools that guess at passwords.

Change the default name of the Wi-Fi network. Hackers are more likely to target networks running default names as they will believe them to be poorly configured. This can also be done via the manufacturer site.

If possible, stop broadcasting that Wi-Fi name to the wider world. This can also be done over the manufacturer’s web terminal. A feature known as Mac Address Filtering can also prevent any unknown, untrusted device from connecting.

If your router is hacked, using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will encrypt all your online activities. This will stop the hacker seeing anything useful as it will all be garbled nonsense passing over the network. VPNs can be easily downloaded but check reviews for the best options.

Regularly check for updates of router software, as these will fix vulnerabilities.

Make sure the router firewall is switched on as this will prevent users visiting any untrusted, dangerous websites.